Interesting

After my wonderful lovely fall down the stairs I went to emergency, had x-rays, got poked, prodded, etc. and sent home with no answers.

At my follow up appointment with an ortho surgeon on Thursday they booked me in for 9:30am. I got there, and I signed in... waited... waited... finished the book I was reading... waited some more, they brought me into the little "room" followed by more waiting...

Out comes this nice little lady, after looking at my x-rays from emergency, and she has a posse of 2 additional doctor-type people. She's stage whispering "You guys should talk to that lady right there," she points at me, "she's interesting."

Having someone call you interesting in normal social situations is perfectly acceptable. It's nice when people think you're interesting. But in a hospital, when someone says 'interesting' they mean 'Medically Interesting' which means a lot of ogling and a LOT more poking, prodding, twisting, pulling, stretching, and PAIN.

So the nice lady comes over, and she says "You have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome? Hypermobility type?" I say "Yes, you've heard of it?" to which she replies, "I've seen several people with EDS."

At this point I'm sure there is a look of utter shock on my face.

Then commences the poking, prodding, pulling, twisting, man-handling, stretching, and other various torture. When all of this is finished, the nice lady calls over her 2 partners in crime, and says to me "Don't tell them you have EDS." Once the guys get over there she promptly tells them "It's NOT in her head... It's all in her collagen" (with a conspiratorial wink to me). Then she leaves them to torture me some more.

The first guy goes through the whole process again, asks me about previous injuries, laughs at me a little (in a concerned, and caring way). Then says "You have Marfan Syndrome." To which I reply, "Nope, that's my husband, try again." I figure the guy gets some points for trying...

Second guy goes through the whole thing, and comes up with Ehlers-Danlos, but he's not sure which type, because there's "Like three different types, right?" It's MY turn to laugh now as I inform him there are many more than 3 different types, and I have the Hypermobile type.

At this point I got to show off my pretty Medical ID Dogtag (IdentifyYourself.com), on the front is my name, and on the back it says:
"EHLERS DANLOS SYNDROME
HIGH RISK OF JOINT
DISLOCATION WITH
LITTLE OR NO TRAUMA
PENICILLIN ALLERGY
MORPHINE ALLERGY"
The nice doctor guys said it was nicer than a lot of the bracelets they've seen. I agree.

After all of this fun, I am nearly crying because of the ridiculous torture they have inflicted upon me. And the first guy tells me it's a couple of stretched tendons, and I need to go buy a brace, and wear it "until it's healed" no time frame on that one.

I'm VERY VERY tempted at this point to go back and request that they cast the stupid thing, because this brace, in order to be effective, needs to be TIGHT. When it's tight enough to be effective, it either cuts off some circulation to my toes, or it digs into my shin, and the top of my foot (or both). It also has the added bonus of needing to be removed for sleeping. Waking up at 3am on a Saturday is bad enough without the "HOLYMOTHEROFGODPAIN" that comes out of my mouth because I had the nerve to move my foot as I slept.

The only problem with this is I work for a living, and taking another half a day off to go to the cast clinic is not really an option.

So for now, I get to pretty much suck it up and deal with it.
Surprised?
I'm not.

P.S.
Spellcheck is funny, it doesn't recognise: Ehlers, Danlos, Hypermobility, Marfan, Hypermobile, or HOLYMOTHEROFGOD as words...